Deputy Attorney General

In 1997, after the retirement of Jamie Gorelick, Clinton nominated Holder to be the next Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno. Holder was confirmed several months later in the Senate by a unanimous vote.[11] During his confirmation hearing, Holder's opposition to the death penalty was questioned, but he pledged his intention to cooperate with the current laws and Reno, saying, "I am not a proponent of the death penalty, but I will enforce the law as this Congress gives it to us."[12] Holder was the first African-American to serve in that position.[7] Holder briefly served as Acting Attorney General under President George W. Bush until the Senate confirmed Bush's nominee John Ashcroft.[13]

Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder opened an Interagency Working Group meeting of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders hosted by the Department of Justice on October 18, 2000.

In his final days with the Clinton administration, Holder was involved with Clinton's last-minute pardon of fugitive and Democratic contributor Marc Rich. Between November 2000 and January 2001, Jack Quinn, Rich's lawyer and former White House Counsel from 1995–96, had been contacting Holder, testing the waters for the political viability of a presidential pardon. Quinn asked Holder for advice as to how he should proceed. According to Rich's attorney, Holder advised to circumvent standard procedures and to submit the pardon petition directly to the White House.[14].

After presenting his case to Holder in a November phone call and a last minute January 17 letter, Quinn arranged a phone call between the White House and Holder, asking the Deputy Attorney General to share his opinion on the Rich pardon. Holder gave Clinton a "neutral, leaning towards favorable" opinion of the pardon.[7] The reporter Joe Conason contends that Rich's pardon was actually a favor from Clinton to members of the Israeli government, for which Clinton hoped to gain progress in the peace talks between Israel and Palestine.[15].

During his February testimonies before the House Government Reform Committee[16] and Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder argued his phone call was not intended as a formal Justice Department blessing of the pardon, saying, "my interaction with the White House, I did not view as a recommendation. Because... I didn't have the ability to look at all the materials that had been vetted through the way we normally vet materials." He also did not believe his opinion would be interpreted as a go-ahead for the pardon. "What I said to the White House counsel ultimately was that I was neutral on this because I didn't have a factual basis to make a determination as to whether or not Mr. Quinn's contentions were in fact accurate, whether or not there had been a change in the law, a change in the applicable Justice Department regulations, and whether or not that was something that would justify the extraordinary grant of a pardon."[17] An investigation championed by Republican House Government Reform Committee chairman Rep. Dan Burton concluded, in a 2003 report covering 177 Clinton pardons, that Holder had played a significant role in facilitating the Rich pardon, first by recommending the well-connected Jack Quinn to Rich's legal representatives, by failing to fully inform prosecutors of the pending pardon, and by eventually delivering a "neutral leaning favorable" opinion to Clinton from a position of authority.[18] Holder has expressed some regret over his handling of the Rich pardon, stating "I wish I had done some things differently with regard to the Marc Rich matter. Specifically, I wish that I had ensured that the Department of Justice was more fully informed and involved in this pardon process", and called his own actions a "mistake."[19]

Official photo as Deputy Attorney General, ca. 2000

Holder was also involved in Clinton's decision to reduce the criminal sentences of 16 members of the Boricua Popular Army, an organization that has been categorized by the FBI as a terrorist organization. The clemency request was initially opposed in 1996 by U.S. Pardons Attorney Margaret Love. When Holder was elevated to Deputy Attorney General in 1997, he was asked to reexamine the issue by three members of Congress. In July 1999, Holder recommended clemency to Clinton with a report from then U.S. Pardons Attorney Roger Adams that neither supported nor opposed clemency. A month later, Clinton granted the clemency. According to The Hartford Courant, the clemency was unusual because it was opposed by the FBI, the federal prosecutor and the victims. According to the newspaper, it was also unusual because, before the commutations, the Boricua Popular Army members were not required to repudiate their actions, and they were not asked to provide any information concerning the whereabouts of Victor Manuel Gerena, a co-conspirator and one of the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, or the millions of dollars stolen by the group in a 1983 robbery of Wells Fargo in West Hartford, Connecticut.[20]

In March 2004 Holder and Covington & Burling were hired by Illinois GovernorRod Blagojevich to act as a special investigator to the Illinois Gaming Board. The Gaming Board had voted 4-1 earlier that month to allow a casino to be built in Rosemont, Illinois. That vote defied the recommendation of the board's staff, which had raised concerns about alleged organized-crime links to the Rosemont casino's developer. The move had also raised concerns that the governor had named his close friend and fund-raiser, Christopher Kelly, as a "special government agent" to be involved in official state negotiations about the casino. Holder's legal work for the State of Illinois never materialized when the board reversed its decision and refused to hire Kelly. The investigation was subsequently canceled on May 18, 2004.[24]

The firm represented Guantanamo inmates but Holder "never participated directly in the firm's Guantanamo work", and is not expected to recuse himself from matters pertaining to it.[25]

While D.C. v. Heller was being heard by the Supreme Court in 2008, Holder joined the Reno-led amicus brief, which urged the Supreme Court to uphold Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban and said the position of the Department of Justice, from Franklin Roosevelt through Clinton, was that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right to keep and bear arms for purposes unrelated to a State’s operation of a well-regulated militia.[26] Holder said that overturning the 1976 law "opens the door to more people having more access to guns and putting guns on the streets."[27]

In 2008, Holder represented the wife of Robert Wone, victim of a controversial and unsolved 2006 murder.[28]

On December 1, 2008, Obama announced that Holder would be his nominee for Attorney General.[34][35] He was formally nominated on January 20, 2009[36] and approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 28.[37] Following his confirmation by the full Senate on February 2, 2009, he became the first African-American Attorney General of the United States. His installation took place on March 27, 2009 at the Lisner Auditorium of the George Washington University.

Holder gave a speech on race relations on February 18, 2009, in the midst of Black History Month, in which he called the United States "a nation of cowards" on racial issues. "Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we average Americans simply do not talk enough with each other about race," he said.[40] The speech stirred mild controversy, with some reacting favorably to Holder's comments[41] and others sharply criticizing them.[42] Obama rebuked Holder's comments, saying that “I think it’s fair to say that if I had been advising my attorney general, we would have used different language”.[43]

When questioned about weapons regulations during a news conference to announce the arrest of Mexicandrug cartel members, Holder stated that the Obama administration would seek to reinstitute the expired Assault Weapons Ban,[44] which he strongly supports.[45]

After the U.S. government filed suit against the Swiss bank UBS AG, whom Holder had represented during his time in private practice,[46] the attorney general recused himself from all legal matters concerning the bank,[47] which stands accused of conspiracy in U.S. tax fraud.

On April 1, 2009, Holder announced that he had ordered the dismissal of the indictment against former Senator Ted Stevens on corruption charges. Stevens had been found guilty, but hadn't been sentenced; Holder's action effectively vacated Stevens' conviction. Holder was reportedly very angry that the prosecutors had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence from Stevens' attorneys. After the prosecutors had been held in contempt of court for failing to turn over required documents, Holder replaced the entire trial team. Soon afterward, the Justice Department discovered a previously undocumented interview with Bill Allen, the prosecution's star witness. In this interview, Allen gave statements that directly contradicted his testimony at trial, including a claim that he'd been asked to get a note for a repair bill on his house. By nearly all accounts, Holder wanted to send a message that he would not tolerate any behavior he deemed to be prosecutorial misconduct.[48]

Holder presented friend and predecessor Janet Reno, Attorney General under the Clinton Administration, the American Judicature Society's Justice Award on April 17, 2009. The award is the highest given by the AJS, and recognizes significant contributions toward improvements in the administration of justice within the United States.[49]

Awards

In June 2009 the Government of Barbados announced that it would begin a project to determine the first 100 Great Barbadians which would be selected among the public of Barbados. At the announcement of the project it was announced that Eric Holder was the first candidate to be nominated toward the final list.[53]

Sourced

Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic
melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to
be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of
cowards. Though race related issues continue to occupy a
significant portion of our political discussion, and though there
remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average
Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race. It
is an issue we have never been at ease with and given our nation’s
history this is in some ways understandable. And yet, if we are to
make progress in this area we must feel comfortable enough with one
another, and tolerant enough of each other, to have frank
conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.